In an age of lazy iconifying, former Drum journalist Obed Musi was less remembered and celebrated than contemporaries such as Can Themba and Henry Nxumalo. But his pen was just as telling.
Musi died of cancer on Christmas Day last year, aged 72.
Journalist Juby Mayet, who worked with him at the Golden City Post in the late 1950s and also judged the media industry’s 2009 Mondi Shanduka Awards with him, remembers him as “an excellent writer” with “a very pungent wit — he was a powerful writer. He could say things in a way that grabbed you by the skin.”
According to Mayet, as a young journalist Musi appeared to fit the Drum archetype – “fast, energetic and good looking”. Veteran photographer Alf Kumalo recalled Musi’s “bravery and sense of humour — he was always joking”.
Said Kumalo: “He was a very tough guy. You needed to be in those days, because he covered stories like the Pondoland Revolt [of 1960-1962] and when you covered the courts there were always bullies and gangsters around.”
While at the Rand Daily Mail, Benjamin Pogrund collaborated with Musi, then employed by the Golden City Post, in an investigation of prison conditions following outbreaks of typhoid and pneumonia.
In his book War of Words: Memoirs of a South African Journalist, Pogrund wrote: “Musi spoke so rapidly that it was a struggle to understand him, but he was a superb and fearless reporter.”
Born in Stirtonville, Boksburg, in 1938, Musi matriculated from St Peter’s College in Rosettenville, famous for its illustrious alumni, including Oliver Tambo. He joined Drum magazine as a “tea-boy” in 1957 but became, within a year, its chief reporter.
Working for more than 40 years as a journalist, Musi spent time at various publications including Voice, The World, Drum and City Press. He also co-edited the “ghetto edition” of the Rand Daily Mail with Gavin Stewart.
He covered many of the major news stories of the period, including the 1960 disaster at Coalbrook mine, in which 411 black miners and six whites were entombed.
The Golden City Post at the time highlighted and compared the efforts made to rescue the miners — because of the white miners who were trapped — with the standard response to mining disasters in South Africa, which was generally minimal. It also exposed the absence of safety regulations in the mining industry.
For Kumalo, Musi’s reporting on the disaster represented some of his best work, highlighting his ability to layer stories while commenting on the apartheid status quo.
“He ran a story that suggested that all these miners were buried in a multiracial grave — something, obviously, that was impossible at the time,” Kumalo said. Musi loved jazz and was renowned as a clarinet player.
At the time of his death he had just completed a glossary of tsotsi taal and was finalising a manuscript of his memoirs. His death came just two months after that of his wife, Ruth.
Their daughter, Dudu Moloi, said: “It was as if something had left my father after her death — he missed her tremendously.” Obed Musi — journalist, gentleman and wit — is survived by his siblings, John and Isabel, and his five children.